I couldn’t wait to read Shirt of Flame, and I found it fascinating, for many reasons. One passage struck me in particular.

In the study of happiness, I’m always fascinated and moved when I see a person choose to react in a way that boosts happiness or love or forgiveness, when circumstances make that choice difficult.

In her spiritual memoir Story of a Soul(which was one of the book-club choices for this month, by the way), St. Therese gives many examples about this from her own life—for instance, the moment of her “complete conversion,” where she acted selflessly by showing a greedy joy in her Christmas presents. In her circumstances, that was the loving way to act. Sometimes we can be generous by taking.

Often, to allow oneself to respond in a different frame of mind, a person re-frames a situation.

Heather King recounts an interesting example of this. She writes, “I’m mortified to admit that I was still miffed because [my mother had] never told me as a child (or an adult, for that matter) that I was pretty.”

Then she recounts how St. Therese has interpreted the same situation with her own upbringing. St. Therese’s mother died when she was four, and her older sisters, particularly her sister Pauline, helped raise her.

St. Therese writes, “You gave a lot of attention, dear [Pauline], not to let me near anything that might tarnish my innocence, especially not to let me hear a single word that might be capable of letting vanity slip into my heart.”

As King points out, St. Therese chose to understand a lack of compliments to be a sign of loving care. That’s not the only interpretation, but that’s the one she chose to have.

I see that this is an area where I fall very short. Too often, I respond to a choice by feeling aggrieved or resentful. Sometimes, perversely, I almost enjoy feeling aggrieved or resentful—and don’t even try to put a different cast on it or look for other explanations.

I’m reminded of an observation by Flannery O’Connor, from a letter she wrote in 1959. “From 15 to 18 is an age at which one is very sensitive to the sins of others, as I know from recollections of myself. At that age you don’t look for what is hidden. It is a sign of maturity not to be scandalized and to try to find explanations in charity.”

“Finding explanations in charity” is another way of putting it—the aim of choosing to interpret actions in a loving way.

I feel like I just came across another great example of this, in some book or movie, but I’m blanking. Stay tuned, maybe I’ll think of it. Have you seen examples of this kind of choice yourself?

Want to win a free copy of Happier at Home ? I’m giving away one book each day this month.

Enter your name and email in the sign-up form here, and every day, a name will be picked at random. U.S., Canada, and U.K. only–sorry about that restriction on the give-away.

Also ...

This video by Katrina Kenison, The Gift of an Ordinary Day, has been watched more than 1.6 million times. I just saw it for the first time, and I loved it.

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